The Chosen Apprentice - Chapter 11

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Obi-Wan stood next to a small light runner and had his head in the cockpit when Anakin came in, he knew enough about the ship that the mission ahead was a dangerous one.

“Why didn’t you tell me before now?” he asked Obi-Wan. “You said we’re going to Naboo.”

“There’s no we Anakin, I’m going,” Obi-Wan replied, “you need to stay here.”

Anakin glowered at him. “What happened the last time you set off on a mission without me?”

“This isn’t like that, Anakin,” Obi-Wan explained patiently. “It’s very delicate, there’s a diplomatic packet that I need to retrieve in relation to Gunray’s trial. That means you can’t have much to do with it. Besides,” he added. “There’s something I need you to do while I’m gone.”

“What?”

Obi-Wan smiled. “It isn’t much,” he said. “I just need you to take over my ‘saber class for a few days.”

“WHAT?!”

Obi-Wan ignored his reaction. “I’ll be gone for two days, three at the most,” he continued quickly.

“No one will even notice I'm gone.”

“I will,” Anakin argued.

Obi-Wan looked at Anakin for a moment. This was like before he had gone after General Grievous three years ago. The last time, Obi-Wan realised later, when he had really seen Anakin. After that he had been a shadow of his former self, something that Obi-Wan was willing to do anything to stop.

Yet there would be time to talk when he had returned. And, perhaps teaching others would make Anakin see things he normally was not willing to learn for himself.

“I have to get going,” Obi-Wan said quickly, he slipped into the cockpit. “I’ll see you when I get back, if you are still in one piece.”

Anakin knew better than to argue any further. “May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan,” he said, closing the hatch as the customary farewell was returned in kind.

Yet as he watched Obi-Wan’s ship disappear into the darkening sky, he had an idea who would need the will of the Force more.

---

Martreyea Kittern smiled as she watched her husband and son sitting together on the couch in the tiny living room of their apartment. It was in a neighbourhood that was much to be desired, she had asked Shinai a few questions when they had arrived and he had told her she was better off not knowing. But it was only temporary, she knew, the job that had brought her husband here would mean that they could get a place of their own like they had had on Avingnon.

“No, like this,” Shinai urged, rolling the clear glass ball towards him, yet he did it without even touching it. “You need to feel it, know how smooth it is and it will just come.”

Arrin looked up at his father sceptically, he had his mother’s red hair and serious dark eyes that always seemed to be questioning something or other.

“But how can I feel it if you don’t give it to me?” he whined softly.

“I don’t need to,” his father answered, “you can just take it from me.”

Arrin shook his head in bewilderment.

“You just need to relax your mind,” Shinai urged.

The boy looked up at him from beneath the fringe that obscured part of his vision. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It is,” his father told him, “once you start it, it just flows.”

“Okay,” agreed Arrin reluctantly, “I’ll give it a try.”

“No,” Shinai corrected gently, “you need to do more than try, you need to actually do it.”

Arrin crossed his legs as his father had shown him before and closed his eyes. After a moment Shinai placed the glass ball back on the floor, just out of his son’s reach. As much as he wanted to reach out with the Force to assist Arrin, he knew that this was something the boy had to do himself.

For a moment he remembered the elation and then confusion that he had felt when Martreyea had told him she was pregnant. And then, holding his son an hour after he was born, feeling the briefest murmur of the Force stir within the sleeping bundle he held.

Now Arrin was almost four, and while Shinai did not have as much time to train him as he would had liked, the boy could recognise the Force for what it was.

Arrin’s face tensed with confusion, Shinai shook his read.

“Relax!” he urged, deliberately making his voice soft.

A deep, almost serene expression crossed the boy’s face; Shinai drew his attention to the ball. It quivered for a moment as if tapped then slowly rolled towards the boy’s leg. Arrin jumped as the ball struck him.

“I…I did it!” he said, looking at the ball and then grinning up at his father. “It was like you said, I told it to come and it did.”

Shinai ruffled the boy’s hair, smiling as he noticed Martreyea watching them through the doorway.

---

Later, when Arrin was in bed, Martreyea dared her husband with a question that had been troubling her for sometime.

“Do you think it’s…safe?” she murmured.

Shinai turned towards her. As a Miralukan had no eyes, he could not actually see her in the same way that she could see him. He saw her as he saw all things, a combination of sensations through the Force.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“This…what you have been teaching him,” Martreyea explained. “You told me how the Jedi take away anyone they can find with these…abilities. If they found him…” She shuddered.

“Hey.” Shinai took her hand in his, letting his arm come around her shoulder. “I didn’t mean for Arrin to have these abilities anymore than you did,” he told her. “But in my view, it would be a great waste for him not to use what he is gifted naturally with.”

“So you mean they can find out,” Martreyea said, “they can simply take him, like they did with you.”

“Shhh.” He soothed, holding her closer. “No one is going to take him, and as far as I remember they don’t even know about him.” He had seen to it at Arrin’s birth that the midi-chlorian test—now a standard test on all newborn infants in Republic territory—came back with no remarked result. Yet that had not quieted Martreyea’s fears, fears that went back to an instinct older and stronger than any other: the fear of a mother losing her child.

“Remember,” he explained to her,” they don’t even know about me.” He paused, touching her chin so that he could see her face—well kind of. “As far as the Jedi are aware I died on Avingnon,” he reminded her. “And in a way, I did.” He led her gently over to the couch and sat her down. “This job’s going to do a lot for us,” he told her, “you know I can’t give you any details but we can at last get a place we can call home that’s not out nowhere or under anything. And perhaps,” he suggested, her tears lessening, “we could give Arrin a brother or sister.”

The tender moment was interrupted by Shinai’s comlink buzzing. Reluctantly he went to answer it, moving to the back of the apartment so the call could come in clearer.

“Yes?”

“There’s been a delay,” said the voice on the other end, it was hic contact. Not the Zabrak, the one who he had never seen that had called him on Avingnon with the offer.

“How much?” Shinai asked.

“A few days,” the voice told him. “The job is still on.”

“It better be,” Shinai said impatiently, “I didn’t come out here for nothing, you know.”

“My employer understands this,” the voice said.

“So when?” Shinai made his voice sound impatient.

“Can’t say,” replied the voice, “I will let you know before.”

And with that the call was terminated.